Dear IDA Members: As we head into the holiday season, we find reason to rejoice at the simplest of life's pleasures: just the freedom to read this magazine, pursue the films we want to make or watch, and be with family. Our constant prayer is for a world that works for everyone. The documentary form has a unique role to play in that process by shedding light, revealing truth and helping to bind people together through better understanding of each other's ways and thinking. Bob Guenette, the first recipient of IDA's Pioneer Award, is an example of a documentary maker who has made films that
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Dear Readers, The end of a year inspires us to reflect on events that have impacted the course of our daily lives and etched themselves indelibly into history. We reflect also on culture, on the artistic achievements that have defined the moment and that very well may stand the test of time IDA moved its annual awards program from October to December this year to alleviate the burden of mounting two major events—DOCtober and the IDA Awards Gala/DocuFest—in the span of a couple of weeks, and allow each event its own space and identity. But it's probably more fitting for us to kick off the
I live in New York, and on September 11 I was home, less than 20 blocks from the World Trade Center Towers. I could have watched their undoing in person, but I remained fixed to the TV, hoping it would provide understanding and reassurance through its multiple-camera coverage. I thought about picking up my Super-8 movie camera to record the immediate aftermath, but the camera just felt too heavy, and I spent the day alternating between shock and sadness. As a source of comfort, my profession failed me—or did I fail it? Nearly two months later, I still wonder, and so I asked fellow filmmakers
Good meeting places are an essential element to successful festivals. In Marseille, France, a harbor-side marquee welcomed visitors to both Sunny Side of the Doc and the Festival International du Documentaire. It was the perfect spot to reflect on a Discovery Channel seminar or discuss the lessons to be learned from a film that mixed 16mm, DV, Super 8mm and vide while, sipping a glass of white wine and gazing out on the yachts sailing in the Mediterranean. Artistic Director Laurence Roth believes that today’s cinema “is an interplay between fiction and documentary.” This philosophy is clearly
If you want to be a documentary/nonfiction filmmaker, making your first film is the first step (Note: The term “film” refers to “film and/or video and/or digital moving image media” throughout this article.). This portfolio work will help you get a job, a grant, attention at film festivals—and help your next project find support. A good way to evaluate documentary production training programs is to consider how the program will help you make portfolio works. One should look at the faculty, their credits, the courses offered, the equipment, facilities, and financial aid available. Look at films
I first saw The Plow That Broke the Plains in Canada in 1952, when the 1936 film was already legendary. I had recently arrived in Canada hoping to hone my skills as a filmmaker at the National Film Board. In “apartheid” America of the 1950s, the US movie industry was completely closed to any African-American who aspired to work behind the camera. I had heard and read of the world-class work that was being done at the Film Board, so I packed my bags and headed north. I was lucky enough to have been accepted as an apprentice on the NFB staff. For me, it was a dream come true: At that time, the
Dear IDA Members, As reports begin to come in from our members around the world, it is clear that everyone is "getting back to work." The pain of loss will not quickly pass, especially for those who lost loved ones in the September 11th attacks. Everyone, even those far from New York, has been affected by those mind-numbing events. And, of course, the curiosity of the world is turned more intently toward a corner of the world where most of our members have not traveled. As you read this, at least two teams of IDA members are in Afghanistan searching cinematically for answers, information and
Dear Readers, September 11 will be with us for a long time, and we’ll be looking, in this issue and future issues, at how documentary filmmakers can make a difference in their work in the new, unsettling world in which we find ourselves. Undoubtedly, the events of that date will impact the way we find and tell stories—and make us consider our sense of duty and responsibility as documentary makers. New York-based documentarian Gregory Orr shared daily e-mail dispatches from Ground Zero, and I asked him to contact other New York-based filmmakers for their thoughts and reflections, and to share
On September 11 and the days that followed, New York-based documentary filmmakers responded in different ways—some recorded what they saw on video, some on film, some on still cameras. For others, the enormity of the tragedies was too overwhelming to record. This is a story about how one production company responded. BNNtv.com (Broadcast News Network) is a leading New York City-based interactive media company. Its television division produces up to 40 hours of nonfiction programming annually for most of the US-based cable and network broadcasters, while its website division, CameraPlanet.com
About seven years ago, I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about a “forgotten colony” of American Civil War-era Confederates in the town of Santa Barbara d'Oeste, São Paulo, Brazil. As a Brazilian filmmaker living in Southern California at that time, I had never heard of such a phenomenon as the “Brazilian Dixieland” in my own country! I had just moved back to the US, having lived here in the 1980s, and I couldn't return to Brazil because of my visa situation. So, I had to wait three years to be able to travel there and shoot a documentary about the thousands of Confederate families and